The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL]-Chapter 929: Orphans of Two Worlds
It was, in fact, already a little too late for the adjutant who had very confidently offered moral support and accidentally created more work for himself.
Safe to say, one Kyle Nox had come to the horrifying realization that he was absolutely not meant to offer moral support unless he wished to be remembered as the reason the Empire of Solaris decided to casually intrude upon the political landscape of the Elven Kingdom.
He sincerely hoped no future history book would ever refer to him as the origin of the whisper that triggered it all.
More than that, he had also discovered something else.
It was, in fact, a terrible idea to sit in a room full of people who were too righteous for their own good.
"How dare he!" exclaimed his very blonde mop, who was aghast at the thought of Prince Eren becoming King by taking out his own brother and then, potentially, his own father.
"We must ride at dawn!"
Nuh-uh.
We must absolutely not ride at dawn.
Kyle contained the internal screaming that threatened to tear through his skull and, by some miracle, managed not to physically clap a hand over his partner’s mouth.
Barely.
Then again, if he was having difficulty maintaining sanity, the same, and possibly worse, could be said about the Imperial Crown Prince himself.
Because Xavier currently held the intense stare of his wife, who looked entirely prepared to eradicate whatever evil dared exist in the universe after hearing how the Elven Prince had been forced to hide his identity because of his abilities.
Prince Elior’s quiet confession still lingered in the room.
"I had promised to marry her and yet couldn’t even be honest about the most basic things about my life. It was maddening."
Princess Kira was sniffling off to the side, clearly moved, and at this point, Ada had taken it upon herself to keep passing tissues to what had become an unexpectedly invested audience.
Kyle glanced around the room to see similar expressions and resigned himself to his fate.
Because honestly, how could the story not resonate with their guild leader?
As someone who had endured something unfortunately similar, how could Luca not feel for Prince Elior?
__
See, after tracking and approximating the Elven Princess’s arrival, including the service stations her spacecraft would likely pass before reaching Solara, the discussion eventually shifted.
It circled back to the time Prince Elior and Rahil managed to secure work under House Kyros.
Rahil had earlier described it as an unexpected and much-needed windfall, but in truth, it was actually more than just that, because just getting there almost killed them. More importantly, they didn’t even succeed in their first try!
But for it to make sense, it would be better to tell them about several important things.
Now all eyes turned to the Elven Prince himself.
Elior drew in a breath.
"It might sound extremely unhinged," he began carefully, "but we were around fourteen when Eren enacted the plans he’d apparently been working on for years."
"What? Years?!" Ollie blurted out.
Elior nodded slowly.
"It’s still largely a hypothesis," he admitted, "but we believe he must’ve been enabled. There’s simply no way Eren could’ve acquired the kind of resources he did at that age without some sort of backing."
A heavy silence followed.
"Nonetheless," Elior continued, his voice steady but distant, "as you could probably tell, I was completely blindsided. I never expected my twin to do something so... uncharacteristic."
He paused briefly.
"Perhaps that was also on me. Because when he looked straight into my eyes and calmly told me what he planned to do to Rahil, I couldn’t even recognize my own brother."
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t dramatize it.
But the way he said it made it sound like he was reliving a nightmare.
"So yes," he went on, "we were practically children when we barely escaped his clutches."
"I say escaped, but it was more accurate to say I was disposed of as dead. He likely didn’t expect me to wake up. And he certainly didn’t expect me to disappear."
Rahil’s expression tightened slightly, but he remained silent.
"As Rahil already mentioned, we drifted all over the place for quite some time," Elior said. "A large part of that was because we were simply too young. We couldn’t stay in one place for long."
"We couldn’t even keep the vessel we escaped on beyond immediate necessity. We assumed Eren would eventually realize my body hadn’t actually been disposed of."
"Our first real stroke of luck was almost absurd," he admitted quietly. "We ended up being rescued alongside a group of humans during an evacuation. The planet we initially landed on became contaminated, and the spread was far more rapid than anticipated."
He exhaled slowly.
"While it was problematic because we were young back then, it wasn’t like there weren’t any upsides to it. When finally asked for identification, we claimed to be orphans seeking asylum. At that point, we weren’t even lying."
Princess Kira sniffled even louder, but held as much of it in.
"That was how we first officially entered the Empire. Now, I’m not particularly proud of everything we had to do afterward, but survival was non-negotiable. So in a bid to make some sort of living, we learned to navigate underground economies."
His gaze sharpened slightly.
"With the help of this."
Before anyone could ask what he meant, Prince Elior’s form shimmered.
There was no dramatic flare.
No explosive transformation.
Just a seamless shift.
Where Elior had been standing, Rahil now stood.
"!!!"
Several people audibly gasped.
Then the form shifted again.
Sir Uno stood in his place.
"!!!"
The room nearly combusted in disbelief.
But as if his instincts had slowed even more than the great Tortie’s instincts when asleep, he reacted last.
He blinked.
Then blinked again.
Because who would’ve thought his own face would be capable of scaring him like that?
For a brief second, the original Sir Uno and the copied Sir Uno simply stared at each other. One looked startled. The other looked politely composed.
It was deeply unsettling.
